Read Now! - mvdit tech book

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“Man needs his difficulties because they
are necessary to enjoy success.”
- Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
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CONTENTS
COVER STORY
INTRODUCTION
TO PODCASTS
A MONTH WITH
DUCKDUCKGO
Yet another search engine? or is it
really Better than Google?
DESIGNING FOR ACCESSIBILITY
3
DESIGNING FOR THE APPLE WATCH
APPLE MUSIC
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
4
INTRODUCTION TO PODCASTS
Vidit Bhargava
For the last three years, I’ve been using a
rather uncommon method of getting weekly news and gathering information that I’d
otherwise be reading. I’ve been listening
to Podcasts, and They are so good that I’m
having a hard time scheduling them and
I’m not alone, there are a few but growing
number of users to such shows.
So, what are podcasts? And why is there a
growing minority listening to them so frequently? Podcasts are periodicals. They’re
like TV shows but in smaller snippets and
are in Audio format most of the times.
They can be talk shows, news casts, comedy gigs, or better stories narrated to you
every week (I love those).
Clockwise is a great podcast about catching up with
news every week. Every week a bunch of tech journalists get together and discuss about four important tech stories of the week.
Most of the podcasts I listen to, range from being 5 minutes long to about as long 2.5
hours but the engagement level is immense. You can tune into anything you like and get
a lot of insight.
Likewise a podcast called Serial is an audio periodical, a real life story of a murder that
happened 16 years ago. The host explores the possibility that the wrong person was put
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behind the bars. It’s just as exciting a murder mystery
as a TV series on the same might be!
Where and How can I listen them?
Podcasts are free to listen streams available on the Internet. There are a lot services which let you discover
new podcasts and listen to them with ease. They are
called PodCatchers. iOS Has a default app that lets you
do that. Then there’s Marco Arment’s Overcast which
has awesome recommendations, again great for discovery.
On Android, PocketCasts (Made by Russel Ivanovich,
a podcaster himself) is the leader in Podcast apps but
if you are Looking for something free DoubleTwist is
worth a shot.
The interface is generally simple. Once you subscribe to
a podcast, your feed populates with the latest ones from
different podcasts. You can then stream them or save
them for later listening.
New Yorker’s Fiction Podcast is a great show for
readers. Each week a guest
author reads a short story
from the New Yorker’s Archives.
Short and Enganging, The
New Yorker Fiction Podcast is a vault of stories.
The interface is generally simple. Once you
subscribe to a podcast, your feed populates
with the latest ones from different podcasts.
Where do I begin?
The podcasts I listen to generally cater to my interests
and while I discovered some through Twitter. Most of
them were discovered through the iTunes Store, a pretty decent platform to discover lots of Podcast content.
Over time I’ve built a small repository of some of the
active podcasts that interest me. You can view it on the
side columns.
A podcast by The Verge,
What’s Tech tries to explain the technology in the
most basic form possible.
It’s an interesting podcast
for some really good trivia
too.
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How does design affect
our lives? Bad Design can
lead to frustrating experiences and accidents. While
Good Design is generally
rewarding and helpful.
Hosted by Roman Mars,
99% Invisible is a Design
Podcast that every one can
listen to.
A weekly dive into the
pop-culture, The Incomparable, hosted by Jason
Snell, is a podcast about
Books, TV shows, Movies
and Comics. The host and
his guests, discuss and recommend great stuff.
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About the Serial Podcast:
If you haven’t heard serial. Go listen to it now! It’s probably the most intriguing story I’ve heard, better than
some of the TVShows and Movies even. A real life story
of a murder that happened 16 years ago. The host Sarah
Koenig explores the possibility that the wrong person
was put behind the bars. A series of 12 episodes, The
season 1 of Serial finished back in December last year
and is scheduled to come back soon.
A lot of people like to compare podcasts with Radio talk
shows. Which is in some ways a pretty fair comparison. Podcasts are Radio Talk Shows in a sense. They
are free, periodical and highly enganging.
But what sets them apart from the modern day radio,
is the fact there’s always something worthwile to listen
to and it can be listened at anytime of the day. Podcasts
cater to the interests of just about everyone and not just
a group of people, often called the mass-market. And
the fact that even the ads on some of these Podcasts are
curated is a big win. They don’t usually feel like big-distractions in a conversion (often very carefully placed).
Ads are often a distraction. Curating what is being advertised, is very interesting.
A phenomenon that cought steam back in early 2000s
is populating with interesting content every day, these
days. It’s perhaps the most interesting time to be hooked
to audio weeklies.
A MONTH WITH
DUCKDUCKGO
Vidit Bhargava
leader of search engines. DuckDuckGo’s
big differentiating factor is the fact that it
At this point it seems crazy to think some- isn’t interested in your data. It’s challengone will start a new search engine. Google ing Google on the privacy front and sure,
after all is doing a great job at search. But DuckDuckGo’s privacy concerns are genuhere we are, looking at a search engine,
ine but does it make it a better over-all
that claims to be different and in many
product? I have mixed feelings.
ways better than Google, the unchallenged
Useful DuckDuckGo !Bangs
General Search Commands
eCommerce
News
Website
Command
Website
Command
Website
Command
Wikipedia
Google Maps
Quora
!wiki
!maps
!q
Amazon India
Flipkart
Snapdeal
!amin
!fk
!snapdeal
The Verge
TechCrunch
Ars Technica
!verge
!techcrunch
!ars
DuckDuckGo has an expansive repository of more such bangs!
The !Bangs
Probably, the best feature of DuckDuckGo, and one that’s had me using it for this
long is the !bang feature. To search within
a website, all I need to do is insert “!site
name” before a website. This is extremely
useful, while looking for Wikipedia content, shopping for items on Amazon, ba-
sically everywhere when you know the
website you want to search content at.
bang repository
The best !bang command, ironically is for
one of Google’s Service: !map start place
to end leads you to Google Maps with the
directions to the said place. It’s one of the
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fastest way to get directions. I found my- Basically, this makes the process slow,
self using !wiki command more often than because the exclamation mark is neither
in the primary keyboard layout of mobile
anything else. Primarily because of my
keyboards (you have
reading trend, which
consists of more
The !bang commands are a big win to tap the numbers
icon to get to it) and
wikipedia articles
for
DuckDuckGo,
but
typing
in
these
nor is it instantly
than anything.
commands could have been faster, typeable on the keyTry searching for
if they didn’t begin with an exclama- board (Shift + 1 gives
you an exclaimation
!map Current Location
mark.
mark). This relative
tion to Destination
un-reachability of
to get directions for
the ! mark make using !bang commands
a particular particular place on Google
slightly less seamless. There could be betMaps.
ter options of using such commands. For
Initially, I had to remember to use it, but example something like a [Site Name] is
over time !bang has become a regular part far faster to type than an exclaimation
of my searches. The only gripe I have with mark.
this feature though, is the choice of using
an exclamation mark for such commands. The !bang commands are a big win for
DuckDuckGo with
Region Settings off
DuckDuckGo with
Region Settings on
DuckDuckGo, but typing in these commands could have been faster, if they
didn’t begin with an exclamation mark.
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Google Search
Different Kinds of Search
Just how good DuckDuckGo is as a search
engine, depends on what you search for.
Looking for Random Websites? Duck-
DuckDuckGo’s Search Snippets are Amazing, Like this one,
which lets you play podcast and music from SoundCloud.
DuckGo goes ahead and recommends you
the official website. In a habit of searching for random terms, making news at the
moment? You’d be well of by using the
!google bang command.
Searching for a review
Here’s a snippet of my search for Indian
Movie’s review. Notice, the news section
in Google’s Search is highly relevant over
here.
DuckDuckGo is great for a lot of other
The lack of Relevant and Easy to access
things though. Searching for a website
News Results is a
is super easy on
big let down.
DuckDuckGo.
DuckDuckGo
has
some
extremely
handy
My search trends
DuckDuckGo has
search
snippets,
which
give
quick
access
include more of
an official webthe latter. I use
to information that you’d otherwise be site tag added to
search engines to
official websites,
left
to
fishing
inside
Search
Results.
gather news more
incredibly useful if
than anything
you are looking for
else, and it is something that I realised
a bank’s website, where a misspelling can
after I began using DuckDuckGo. Earlier, easily lead you to a phishing page.
I’d just throw in random words of things
Image of a search snippet
I’d like to know the news about; Look at
the date / time of the news and gather the Another handy feature are the conveheadlines instantly. This is where Ducknient Audio, Ask and Apps tab. So, basiDuckGo fails though. At DuckDuckGo,
cally, if you are searching for a podcast.
you have to mention that you are looking You can easily Search for one and listen
for news, and most of the times the news right inside the search engine. The ask
isn’t relevant.
tab is great for stackoverflow questions.
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And then again, it’s got some of the nifty
snippets that google provides too, Flight
Schedules, Calculators, Wikipedia Snippets, Definitions et all. DuckDuckGo’s
Snippets are extremely useful.
DuckDuckGo has some extremely handy
search snippets, which give quick access
to information that you’d otherwise be left
to fishing inside Search Results.
For me, DuckDuckGo’s search has been
very iffy. It’s not better than Google, for a
lot of my searches I still rely on Google’s
services but it’s definitely learning and
learning fast. The founder, Gabriel Weinberg is actively listening to feedback from
all sorts of places, including Twitter. I was
surprised at his prompt replies on a particular DuckDuckGo feedback.
DuckDuckGo isn’t the best search engine
available, but it’s one of the fastest learning and that is highly important.
So, After months of DuckDuckGo us-
This snippets from DuckDuck Go allows you to search for Answers from Stack
Overflow. These small enhancements keep me hooked to the searhc engine.
age. Am I still using it? Yea! Do I love the I can always fall-back to Google’s services
experience? Not necessarily. The experiwithout having to switch default search
ence depends on your search habits, for
engines.
me it’s been less
than satisfactory. DuckDuckGo isn’t the best search engine Should you give
The only reason available, but it’s one of the fastest learning DuckDuckGo
I’m still using
a Try? Sure! It
and
that
is
highly
important.
DuckDuckGo is
might just work
because of its
for you. It all deconstant improvements and the fact that pends on what your search habits are.
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DESIGNING FOR
ACCESSIBILITY
by Vidit Bhargava
Accessibility features are extremely help- tionality is great for proof-reading!
ful for the disabled. These features enable
them to use the devices that they love,
What’s more, Accessibility isn’t something
without letting their disability to get in
that needs long hours of programming
the way but they are equally important to or excessive design tweaking. With a few
those who are
lines of code
perfectly abled.
and minor inAccessibility features are extremely terface tweaks,
A lot of times
these features helpful for the disabled but a lot of times your app can
provide an
reach a much
these
features
provide
an
extra
level
of
extra level of
wider audience.
convenience
But having
convenience too.
too. I’ve always
said that, Acloved to play
cessibility isn’t
around with Accessibility controls on my something that you put on a checklist of
iPhone. I’m an ardent user of the speech
items and check it off in the end. True acfunctionality, even though I don’t have
cessibility is ingrained deep into an App’s
any reading disabilities. The speech func- interface.
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Accessibility is key to a good user experience. If you are designing an app without
making basic considerations for easy usage, it isn’t right. If a colour blind person
cannot tell the difference between an on
or off state of a button, was the button
really designed keeping all the users in
mind? I don’t think so.
I’d like to share a few tips to quickly
make apps more accessible, here:
A Quick Accessibility Check
The first thing you’d want to do with your
app would be put every interface element
that serves a purpose accessible.
It’s a basic checklist of five tasks that you
could perform for every element. Eventually it makes your app work with the voice
over functionality of the device.
Some would argue that this is more about
code than designing the interface and they
are right in a way. Most of the things I
mentioned above need to be done in code
but they are definitely a part of a good
user experience.
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Does it need to be an
accessible element?
Label your Element:
Keep the labels succinct.
Define its trait:
Is it a button or a slider or a
change of state notification?
For Value Based Elements:
Define the value to be
returned.
Provide Hints!
An interface that works in greyscale too,
helps you create a more universal interface
Grey Scale Check
While designing an interface for a touch
screen device, we make elements and
states distinguishable from each other.
For example: An ‘on state’ appears different from the ‘off state’ of the same button.
However, a lot of times this doesn’t translate to people of all kinds of abilities. For
example if your button is only changing
colour on change of state. Somebody who
is colour blind won’t be able to distinguish
between the two states. A greyscale check
solves the issue. I’ve tried to explain the
grey scale test through the illustration
above.
This doesn’t only translate to buttons, it
also translates too every change in the
interface. The important question here is,
Can a user see a change on screen, without a change in colour? He should.
Accessibility with Text
iOS provides users with an ability to in-
crease the text size on their phones. This
is a functionality especially useful to those
with distant vision. A functionality I believe, every app should have.
There’s also a speak functionality. Optional but highly useful. It not only helps the
visually impaired. It’s extremely useful for
having things read out.
In fact I use this feature for nearly every
article that I read online. It helps me read
at a pace I’d otherwise not be able to and
while it is being read I can focus on other
work too. An extremely handy feature
which is also a part of making your app
more accessible.
Subtitles and Closed Captioning
Heavily used for a variety of reasons,
subtitles and closed captioning are a classic example of accessibility. There are
times when people find it hard to catch
the accent of a person in the video, there
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are others where a language unknown to
audience is being spoken and most importantly, sometimes the user has a hearing
problem. Subtitles and Closed Captioning
help a long way here.
Following Platform Conventions
Following platform conventions is a good
design practice. It helps lower the learning curve for an app, significantly. A Lower learning curve also helps in making a
more universal app. An app that’s usable
by all, shouldn’t be difficult to navigate
or take time to provide basic functional-
ity. Following platform conventions is one
of the most significant ways in which an
app’s learning curve can be brought down.
Users get used to a lot of interactions
while using the default app. For example
the swipe gesture which takes you back to
the previous screen or the icon that pulls
up a share sheet. Each platform has its
own conventions, navigation on an iOS
device is different from navigation on an
Android device. Different operating systems have different design languages and
hence their icons are different. A share
icon looks different on iOS and Android
Platform Conventions
Share Buttons
Easily Recognzable
by iOS Users
Easily Recognzable
by Android Users
and so does their respective share sheets.
ferent abilities. It is a bad design choice
that hampers not only the user experience
but the accessibility of the app.
–
A good user experience without designing for accessibility is a myth. At this
point if you are not designing your app
to be accessible to people with different
abilities, you are missing out. It’s not only
about the social responsibility of making
your app work for the differently able, it’s
about reaching a wider audience and enhancing the quality of your app.
So, when a user opens a third party app
he is already expecting the interactions
and icons from the operating system is
using. But if an app decides to use its own
platform’s conventions it takes time for
the user to adjust in the new app. The app
is no longer as easy to use as it would have
been if it followed the interactions and
icons from the platform it is running on.
Not following platform conventions creates a learning curve which might be hard
to overcome for different people with dif15
DESIGNING FOR
APPLE WATCH
by Vidit Bhargava
About an year ago, my brother and me
released a dictionary app for the iPhone:
LookUp. LookUp is a modern day dictionary, it provides more than just meanings
with an easy to use and elegant interface.
There are instances where an image is a
better definition than just text. There are
instances where a wikipedia article might
be useful. A traditional dictionary fails
here but LookUp provides all this data.
This month, we were featured in the
20Under20 Promotion by the App Store
(It is a section featuring the apps made by
young developers). Along with that, we
also released a version 2 for our app. The
second version features a major redesign
and a watch app.
The prospect of a watch app is extremely
exciting. It’s very convenient to lookup
a word’s meaning on your wrist, without having to fetch your phone from the
pocket. But It’s extremely challenging too.
When we started to develop the watch
app, there was no watch to test it on! I
was creating an interface for something
I hadn’t even seen in person. Needless
to say, It was a great learning experience
and I’d love to share some of the things
I learnt while designing the interface for
LookUp’s Watch App.
Designing for the Watch Without
the Watch.
One of the key steps to designing the
interface for LookUp on the Apple Watch
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Initially the Watch App had the option to search for everything. But it was apparent soon, that
something of the sort would be highly impractical given how short the interaction is.
was Paper Prototyping, and while I had
spent a lot of time prototyping interfaces
on Sketch (Thanks to the templates that
Apple Provided with it’s design kit), I
eventually fell back to the paper prototypes. Paper Prototypes alone are a great
way of learning. One of the first things you
realise when you sketch the apple watch
on paper is that how small
it is, even the 42mm version. The screen’s tiny.
This fact, changes the
dynamics of the UI, completely.
Another thing that proved
to be extremely useful
were paper cutouts of the
watch itself. There’s lots
of insight to be gathered
from the exercise of just
pretending to wear the
watch for a day. I would
sit wearing the watch’s
cutout for sometime and
try to fiddle in the screen
area. This gave me some
great insights into button
placement.
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Though the paper prototypes and sketch
templates, there were a lot of things that I
realised in the entire process of designing
the interface for the watch. I’ve listed a
few of them below:
There’s Limited Time.
Watch Interaction is measured in seconds. Designing an interface for the
phone is different from
designing for the desktop
because the interaction
time on a phone is much
shorter than that on the
desktop. While interaction
time on Desktop is measured in hours, it’s measured in minutes for the
phone and in seconds for
the watch.
One can’t use the watch in
the same way as one uses
the phone. This calls for
limiting the functionality of the app, so that, key
tasks are performed in
seconds and the app’s primary tasks are
clearly defined as easily navigable.
Wouldn’t you rather use your phone instead? Sometimes, doing fewer things is
better for the app. Of course, this is just a
non-native apps issue, so we’ll add more
functionality, once it is possible to retrieve
it quickly.
When I initially prototyped LookUp’s
watch app, it was a miniature version of
the iPhone app. It had all the functionality, it displayed everything from Meanings
to Images and even the UI looked like a
Sometimes less is better. With the watch
shrunken iPhone app.
it was extremely crucial to trim down the
functionality of our app to its primary use.
Eventually we ended up displaying
No distractions. The interactions are suonly meanings for the watch app. True,
per quick, and if it takes too long or if the
LookUp’s all about providing more than
interface is to clumsy to even perform the
just meanings, but retrieving all that insmallest of tasks, it isn’t worth it.
formation would take a lot of time, as
apps aren’t fully native at the moment.
The Screen is very small.
What good would our app be, if it took
The Watch Screen is small. It is tiny in
you minutes to lookup a words meaning? fact. While the watch is capable of ex-
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tremely complicated tasks, adding a lot
above the fold is sometimes easy, when
designing on ‘sketch templates’. Drawing the watch on paper gives the right
perspective. Providing fewer controls at a
time is very helpful to the user. But there’s
room for a lot of content to be displayed.
The less frequently used content can go
below the fold.
Paper prototypes have given great per-
spective while designing for the Watch
While designing the app, Initially, the
first screen was very similar to that of
the phone app. The search bar would sit
atop the Word of the Day card. However,
I soon realised that this wasn’t the right
kind of interface. The word of the day card
side-stepped the primary function of our
app: To LookUp words. Our current interface for the first screen is just a single
button, that allows you to quickly search
The Home Screen of the Watch App went through various changes, we eventually
settled for a single button interface which was much more suited to the small screen.
for a word’s meaning. The primary function of the app is clearly highlighted on
the screen.
Our current interface for the first screen
is just a single button, that allows you
to quickly search for a word’s meaning.
The primary function of the app is clearly
highlighted on the screen.
extra functionality to the app. Things that
don’t find a place in the primary interface
of the app, secondary functions, can go in
the force touch menu. Easily accessible
but not cluttering the interface in any way.
They aren’t instantly visible though. It
isn’t as instantly apparent to a user to
force touch on the display for more actions, as it is to scroll with the crown or to
Apple Watch’s Force Touch Menus
use the touch screen. Which is probably
Force Touch Menus are a great tool to add why, Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines
19
don’t recommend adding primary
functions to
a force touch
menu.
times, but it’s a smart move that uses the
watch’s natural padding in a great way.
—
The design and development of the LookUp Watch App took nearly six months. I
had begun on the design as soon as the
watch kit came out but everyday since
The Word
then has been a learning experience.
of the Day
Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines and
Screen
Marco Arment’s post on redesigning his
which we
app for the Apple Watch (which had come
left out from much later during the development, but
the first
has been heavily useful) have been great
screen even- guides here. Mike Stern’s “Designing for
tually ended the Apple Watch” Session at WWDC has
up in the
also helped me further improve the inforce touch
terface. It’s a great session and extremely
menu. It’s a recommended. The thing’s I’ve learnt
secondary
from the session will definitely make it to
function for the watch app’s future updates.
the watch.
It’s not
I’m yet to try my app on an actual watch
something you’d want to see every time
though and I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more
you open the watch app. The Starred List about interfaces on Apple Watch by using
is both a secondary function and someit. However, Creating an interface for a
thing that should be accessible from any
device which I haven’t even used or seen
screen. It’s a diary of your favourite words yet was a wonderful learning experience.
which warrants a place for it in the force
The paper prototyping stage holds a lot
touch menu.
of importance here. There’s a lot you can
learn by just sketching a watch on the paNatural Padding
per and drawing the interface on that.
One of the things I realised, after reading
a few blogs upon the release of the watch, LookUp: An Elegant Dictionary is availwas that the watch provides natural pad- able for the iPhone and Apple Watch on
ding to an interface and so the text on a
the App Store. It’s just $1.99. Your feedblack background can be edge to edge.
back on the Apple Watch app would be
Moreover, heavily margined text might
heavily useful to me.
also hamper the readability on the small
screen. It’s a minor tweak, It’s something
that’ll probably go unnoticed a lot of
20
APPLE MUSIC
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
by Vidit Bhargava
The Idea of Music Streaming
Music Streaming services have existed for
sometime now. These services gained immense popularity after the introduction
of Mobile App Platforms, the idea of listening to any song at any time for a nominal
cost is extremely convenient to a lot of
people.
to rent my favorite Albums every month!?
The idea of Renting music feels a bit like
Uber. It’s good to travel around the city in
a Uber sometimes, on days when being
driven is more important. But it’s an impractical arrangement to sell your own car
and use a Uber everyday. The experience
of staying in control of your car is just not
To me though, the idea has always been a there. This is the same with Renting out
distraction. The entire music library? Na! music. The experience is plastic. It feels as
That’s too much of muthough a service made
Why
would
I
want
to
rent
my
sic to take care of.
for those who don’t even
favorite
Albums
every
month!?
At best, Music Streamhave an inkling of a reing services are a good
lation with their music.
discovery tool. It’s good to be able to hear
complete songs a couple of times
Does Apple do anything better here? Or
before I go on to Purchase them and take does it just provide the same morbid expethem wherever I want to!
rience that others subject me to? Well, for
one, I’m still buying my music, since Apple
Music Streaming Services often post an- Music Libraries won’t sync with my iPods.
other problem. Rents. Why would I want But let’s have a deeper look.
21
Apple Music as a Streaming Service
Internet Streaming
Second: Curated Playlists and Third: Recommendations.
Apple’s Music Streaming service is top of Apple Music’s Internet Streaming is basithe line. The sound quality is great, it’s cally similar to the what other platforms
way better than my previous (part-time) offer, the music quality being streamed is
streaming serat par and
vice
Saavn.
better
than
If
Apple
Music
is
lacking
in
content,
it’s
Curation
Streaming is
some of the
more
than
makes
up
for
it.
basically about
other services,
three things:
there’s a fair
The first: Internet Streaming,
amount of content to be streamed for a
subscription and it
also offers Music Videos to be streamed,
something that’s inherently better than the
YouTube model of handling such videos, if
it gets that level of music content. Music
Streaming in India, however is a slight let
down, in the current three month trial period, some of the major music labels like
Eros Music (Understandable. Eros wants
to promote its own music streaming ser22
vice and is holding back on exclusivity at strumental to Bollywood mixes for you to
least for Apple Music) and T-Series (There choose from. Then there are the “Intro to
are just slow to adapt I guess. Or Maybe Artist” playlists, which basically offer you
they are still
10-15 amazI’ve
almost
formed
a
treasure-chest
of
awesome
muhanging on
ing
songs
to their little sic that I wouldn’t have otherwise come across. from
the
used Hunparticular
gama Music service!) are missing which artist, again beautifully compiled. I tried
is slightly annoying bethe “Intro to A.R. Rahcause currently, the difman” playlist (Didn’t
ference between the
need an Intro to him
Apple Music catalog and
though, being a huge
the iTunes Store catafan of his) and the songs
log is jarring, with Apple
were pretty nicely selectMusic not getting a lot
ed. The same was true for
of new content. This I
most of the other artists.
hope, changes when ApAs a localization for Inple Music starts charging
dian music, there are Inits users and goes cross
tro to Actor playlists too.
platform in September.
The playlists are so far
Add Content to it, and
Apple Music’s best feaApple Music streaming is
ture. This is where Apple
frankly better than all of
Music is Strongest. This
the other streaming seris also a place where Apvice currently in India.
ple Music is way ahead of
the competition. Other
If Apple Music is lackStreaming services rely
ing in content, it’s Curaon Algorithms for this
tion more than makes
kind of work, Apple Muup for it. The thing is,
sic however is doing hueven without the major
man curation too and the
labels, Apple Music has
results are visibly better.
huge amounts of good
undiscovered music. And
What tops the Playlists
Apple has done a fabuis the recommendation
lous job at compiling all
engine that Apple’s using
of this into curated playlists for a host of to suggest you playlists and albums. This
occasions, genres and activities. So, if you is probably more about Machine learning
tap on a studying playlist section there are than Human Curation and for that reason,
around 20-30 playlists ranging from in- it’s not absolutely accurate all the time, as
23
in, it’s not always that I
like the the music being
recommended to me.
Having said that, a lot
of Apple Music’s recommendations are accurate
and have helped me discover new music.
The three parts of the
streaming service combined, together form a
pretty good discovery
platform. In the one
month that I’ve used
Apple Music, I’ve almost
formed a treasure-chest
of awesome music that I
wouldn’t have otherwise
come across.
but I can see the novelty
in such a radio service
which offers a right mix
of new and upcoming
music along with other
good English music in
an environment which
isn’t painted with Ads or
A lot paid promotions.
There are of course,
other radio stations by
Genre, Activities and
Artists. I tried the Bollywood Radio for some
time and while the music being played was a
much better collection
than the local radio stations, but the lack of
Beats 1 like DJs and Curation was slightly disappointing. The Radio
stations in their current
state aren’t amazing, as
they basically use some
sort of a recommendation engine and currently the content is too little
to cater to the diverse needs of a user in
a meaningful way. The stuff will probably
get better with time and perhaps we might
even see a Beats 1 Hindi Station some day
if and when Apple plans to expand to territories which don’t listen to English music
much.
Radio
Apple’s killer feature
for the music service is
Beats 1. It is a global Internet Radio Station that
has real DJs curating
music , a pleasant departure from the current
local radio scenario where spots are basically bought to promote new Albums or
new Movies (In India, at least). With three
DJs and a host of guests on different Radio
Shows Beats 1 features quite an assortment
of English music to listen to. Personally, I
don’t really listen to English Music, and
have only listened to Beats 1 for a few minutes at max, the talk shows are great and Perhaps, Apple Music’s riskiest feature
indulging and the songs I heard didn’t re- yet, Connect is a social network for Artally make me listen to more English music ists to upload exclusive content. Admit24
tedly, this is something that will only catch to have but it isn’t necessarily essential for
steam if the In some form at least, Connect is an alternative for the service,
artists join
or to say, a
Independent
Artists
to
share
their
music
with
a
in and share
need
feawider audience.
content.
ture.
But Apple Music is much more than Shanker Apple Music the App
Ehsaan Loy sharing beApple Music v1.0 is a
hind the scenes concert
good service but it has
photos with their fans.
some serious app isIt’s also about discovsues. The iPhone App,
ering independent artiPad App and OSX
ists in an easier way. In
App are all marred
some form at least, Conwith bugs and crashes.
nect is a competitor to
The experience isn’t
SoundCloud, or more
great. It just barely
precisely an alternative
works.
for Independent Artists to share their music
To start with, I’ve had a
with a wider audience.
few problems with the
The current experience
way Navigation on the
for uploading content,
new Music app is dehowever, is less than designed. Apple Music’s
sirable for Independent
Navigation seems to be
Artists and frankly there
more concerned about
aren’t many indie artists
promoting new features
showing up on my conthan making everything
nect tab. The experience
easily discoverable. Placof following them, isn’t
ing the Search option at
exactly great either.
the top right corner of
the display clearly seems
But what Connect is
to be an attempt to progood at is, catching up
mote playlists, radio and
with Artists, primarily of
curation over searching
use to fans. There’s tons
for specific content. Evof backstage footage available, One of the ery Album and Playlist recommendation is
artists I’m following even disclosed a bit stashed under the “For You” segment, and
of information of one their much awaited all of “My Music” is shoved under one tab
movie albums (Confirming the movie in at the bottom right. Why is this annoying?
the process too!). Connect is a nice feature There are three different navigation tabs
25
to discover Playlists and Albums but none
of them clearly demarcate the line between
content available on my device and that on
the Internet. Shoving every piece of music
under the My Music Tab and every little
inch of recommendation under “For You”,
makes both of the views Heavy, and slightly suffocating.
Personally I’d have gone for a bottom navigation that had Playlists, Albums, Radio,
Search, and Connect, with the For You,
New and My Music segments showing up
as Segmented Controls.
Apple Music also has it’s share of minor
bugs, such as the feedback issue with the
Repeat and Shuffle Buttons. Placed at the issue with adding playlists and songs to
bottom of the Now Playing Interface, both my library initially. It took me days to figRepeat and Shuffle have an extremely dim ure out why the music that I had added
feedback on whether they are in on or off to my library wouldn’t show up. Eventustate. On one occasion I
ally I figured, it was a setaccidentally pressed the
ting, hiding under the My
The
Experience
isn’t
great.
It
“Repeat 1” state and it
Music tab that needed to
just Barely Works.
took me almost a day to
be switched on. A minor
figure out why Apple Mucase of setting wrong desic wouldn’t Play my playlists and instead faults put forward a frustrating experience
repeat a random song from them, or why in the beginning.
my Up Next Queue had only one song repeating 20 times. It initially felt like a bug, To be Honest, Apple Music feels like a beta
on close observation however it was the software at present, the last time I saw
Repeat 1 mode switched on. I’d have liked these many crashes in an App was when I
better feedback on that. I faced a similar was using the iOS 5 Beta 1 to test an app!
26
iCloud Music Library
None of these problems though, hold water to the biggest problem with Apple Music: iCloud Music Library. When Apple
came up with iCloud back in 2011, they
also introduced something known as
iTunes Match. For years, iTunes Match
has been slightly buggy and sometimes
an inaccurate solution to putting music
on the Cloud. Destroying Meta Data, mixing tracks, adding duplicates have been
a frequent annoyance with iCloud Music
Library, the service behind iTunes Match.
With the introduction of Apple Music,
iCloud Music Library being a key component, one would have hoped Apple would
fix these issues like they fixed Siri’s Voice
Recognition before the Apple Watch release. This didn’t happen.
This is what iCloud Music Library does: It
takes your Library and matches the songs
you have to those on the iTunes Store, it like a switch of destruction, which when
then replaces your music with a better switched on could potentially blow up my
quality iTunes replica of the same. How- iTunes Library. Which is actually worse
ever, sometimes the Match isn’t accurate, than having a frustrating experience. The
sometimes there are more than one version experience is no less than terrifying. Perof a song and the songs get inaccurately sonally, I kept a good distant with the butmatched, in
ton that turns
the process,
iCloud Music Library feels like a switch of destruc- this on, on
destroying
my
primation,
which
when
switched
on
could
blow
up
my
the
Song’s
ry desktop,
m e t a d a t a Library. The experience is no less than terrifying which hosts
(like
Play
about
10
Counts) and sometimes even deleting mu- years worth of Valuable Music Data, somesic from library.
thing I’m not willing to give away for any
service, whatsoever. But being a key part of
At the moment, iCloud Music Library feels Apple a Music, it’s annoying to not be able
27
to use the features like Adding Playlists PC. This doesn’t even include the new iPod
or Adding Music to
Shuffle and iPod
Library associated
Nano.
with it, on my Mac.
It is perfectly underDRM Woes
standable as to why a
DRM is a problem
subscription service
for all kinds of Inwould do this. No
ternet Streaming
one wants the muServices, not just
sic to be pirated and
Apple Music. But
with these albums
with Apple Music,
being offered for
it’s moving from a
Free on Apple MuDRM Free system
sic, it would make
to one that’s closely
it tough to keep a
guarded with DRM.
check on Music PiDRM is basically a
racy without a DRM.
technology that ensures that the music
Having said that, we
obtained is playable
have had DRM free
only on Authorized
Music for years now
Computers and Deand are used to havvices.
ing the convenience
of carrying music
Currently, Apple’s
anywhere and not
Music Catalog is
being locked down
split in two. First,
to one Eco-System.
the New Apple MuCurrently, it’s next to
sic Service which
impossible to switch
offers DRM Music
platforms without
for a
spending hours on
Subscription and
getting back all the
iTunes Store which,
playlists and music.
for years, has been
Let alone playing
giving away DRM
music on any platFree Music. So if
form, this eco-sysyou download a song from Apple Music, tem lock-in doesn’t even have room for a
you can only play it on the iCloud Enabled universal playlist format. There’s a reason
devices associated with your Apple ID, like why DRM was hated all along.
your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Mac and
28
Discover and Buy
Apple Music is a great music discovery
platform. In the last one month, I’ve discovered Albums that I love listening to
and forms of music which I had not even
heard of before moving to Apple Music.
Despite v1.0 issues with the Music Apps,
bum than rent it every month. Will I use
Apple Music in the future, after the three
month free trial ends? I might. I definitely
want to use more of Apple Music’s Playlist
Curations and Music Recommendations
to discover more music but I’m not willing to embrace DRMlock in just yet. (Ap-
it’s a rock-solid service, which in India, is ple Music just wouldn’t sync to my iPod).
miles ahead of any competition.
For now, I’m sticking to the Discover and
Buy formula,
So, Am I will- In the month that I used Apple Music, I’ve discov- where I dising to switch ered Albums that I love listening to and forms of cover music
to a subscripvia streaming
music
which
I
had
not
even
heard
of
before.
tion
model
and buy the
only?
No
albums
I’d
Way! I’d much rather buy my favorite al- like to listen more often.
29
Game of the Month
ONE MORE
RUN
Vidit Bhargava
One more Run by SuperSike Games is a new
and innovative cricket game. A complex game
like cricket is extremely hard to make, there
are various rules to be kept in mind, the actions and shots must look realistic or the game
becomes caricaturistic very fast. One More
Runs gets rid of all that and focuses instead on
just one part of the game: Running between
the wickets.
All you’ve got to do is score the target by running between the wickets, in the given number
of balls without getting run out. The scores
get tougher to achieve as the game progresses,
there are bonuses to be earned for a perfect
run.
One More Run is fun, engaging and hard to
put down. The eight bit graphics (which look a
lot like Crossy Road) are nice addition.
Available for Free on iOS and Android
30
INSIDE OUT
ONE OF PIXAR’S BEST MOVIES
Vidit Bhargava
Hidden inside the wonderful world of
InsideOut is a tribute to the Reality Distortion Field, often associated with Steve
Jobs; A comment on how careless people
are about ‘facts’, and a reference to the
booming startup scenario in the Silicon
Valley and having to cope up with moving
to a completely new city. InsideOut’s details are sharp and the plot boiled down to
the simplest possible form.
When Reilley’s parents decide to move
from Minnesota to San Francisco, her
world’s about to change, both Inside and
Outside. Inside the 11 year old’s brain reside Five Basic Emotions, Joy, Sadness,
Disgust, Fear and Anger, taking turns to
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control Reilley’s Actions and collectively
controlling the generally peaceful headquarters of the brain. But things go awry
when Sadness, the often neglected emotion, begins to tinker with the core memories.
The most interesting part of InsideOut is
the brain. Pixar constructs a simple world
full of wonderful things which Joy and
Sadness end up exploring. There’s a brain
headquarters which control Reilley’s actions, her actions define her memories
which land up in the brain as shiny little
balls and while most of them end up in
‘Long Term’ Memory, a library of sorts
which contains a lot of memories stacked
together in giant shelves and maintained
by the ‘brain cleaners’, some memories
form the core memories of Reilley. Which
in turn define her behavioral ‘islands’ like
Honesty, Family Values, Goofiness. Then
there are tiny little ‘adventure parks’ too,
like Imagination Land where Reilley’s
imaginary friends reside or the Dream Creation Place where dreams are projected.
There’s also a 2D world, where you end up
as Picasso like objects (The favorite part of
my film was to see the transition from 3D
to 2D to just shapes). InsideOut throws
In words like Core Memories, Long Term
Memory, which would otherwise be suited
more to a computer class Than an animated children’s movie but these explained so
simply that it’s hard to think that anyone
would have a hard time understanding
them. InsideOut is a ride you’ll love to take
and the director spends time in letting you
discover the details.
The Brain has been very systematically
made. It’s not simple by any means but the
complexities have been presented in such
a way that you want to visit the carefully
structured world. It’s beautifully designed
and well constructed. This has been a long
standing strength of Pixar. From the carefully crafted world of Toys in ToyStory to
the fine world of Fiats, Volkswagens and
Racing cars in the Cars (Highly Underrated), they create worlds that you’ll just love
to visit again. InsideOut is no different.
InsideOut poses another interesting question though, fundamental to the movie’s
plot: Do joy and sadness in everyone’s
brains go through the same ride that Reilley’s emotions went through? Do they
comeback or do some stay back in long
term memory for very long? It’s when you
32
start to ponder on the uncanny partnership of Joy and Sadness, that you realize
how their sync is highly important. InsideOut associates these events with growing
up, Reilley moving to her teenage years. It
is a very interesting indeed.
I saw this movie about a month ago and the
characters have stuck with me, the idea of
tiny little creatures controlling a person’s
is extremely interesting. Few movies have
this kind of impact, and coming from a an
animated movie, is only an indication of
In the nearly pitch perfect world of Inside- how far the medium has gone into making
Out what sticks out though is the slightly extremely special movies.
jagged speed with which the screenplay
moves in the second half, and even more Pixar’s InsideOut is the best movie I’ve
so when the focus shifts from the charac- seen this year. It’s easily one of the best
ters to the beautifully created background, animated movies ever made. It’s a movie
it’s beautiful but it’s best in background, that just can’t be missed.
but then again it’s a kids story and they
won’t mind a peak into an extremely creative brain.
Rating: ****
33
Pixel Quiz July 2015
Vidit Bhargava
Q1. Y works out what’s in an image by
analysing layers until they finally decide
on what it shows. The first images from
Y’s project X, shown in June, reveal a
horrific display of monsters and tentacles
and a capability to insert random noise on
a black screen. This isn’t a product by Y,
but a published GitHub repository. What
is X? and What is Y?
Q2. Y on his DeviantArt profile page, he
notes that he “created X in 2004 because
I can’t help but draw stupid looking characters to spew out my stupid ideas.”. The
first X were published
at a website called
“Sticksuicide[dot]
com”. What is X?
Q3. X is Nintendo’s
First Game Designer.
X designed EVR Race,
Nintendo’s First
Video Game. X also
helped build the technology that developed the ‘save’ option in
Legend of Zelda, a first in console games.
X and Shigero Minamoto are currently
handling the reins at Nintendo. Who is X?
Q4. X, directed by Sanjay Patel is an upcoming short about an Indian boy, who
dreams up a “Hindu version of Avengers,
with Gods as Superheroes”. Name X and
studio behind it.
Q5. Created by Bjorn Jeffery, X is a kids
app making startup that started in Sweden. It is often called the “Lego of Kids’
Mobile Apps”. X’s apps and games don’t
have a story line, to make the games ‘fun’
for kids, instead of teaching them things
that parents would
like them to learn.
To keep the games
universal for Boys
and Girls, X uses
monsters instead
of humans for it’s
game characters. X
calls itself the maker
of digital toys. What
is X?
Q6. X was founded in 2009, by two
34
St.Louis based engineers. X gets it’s name
from the ‘idiom’ for settling debts (which
also happens to be the name of their website). They were initially called “Squirrel
Systems”. Capital, Feedback, Market, are
just some of the names of their ‘products’.
What is X?
Q7. First Founded in 2009, X was lead by
Y from 2013 to 2015. One of the most successful X session was that of Peter Dinklage (of Game Of Thrones fame), back
in 2014. Dinklage had this to say about X
: “This feels like being interviewed by a
hundred thousand news anchors at once!
But much friendlier anchors...who seem
to know their material...I really appreciate
everyone’s enthusiasm and questions.”.
Both X and Y were in news this month.
What is X and Who is Y (Image above)?
Q8. If the tail of the “X-Y position indicator for a display system” was the reason
Answers to the Pixel Quiz April 2015
1. SquareSpace 2. Secret
3. Sonos
6. X: Lyft Y: Pink Moustache
35
for the nickname Mouse. What nickname
did the cursor on screen get?
Q9. This is Carl Malamud, an American
technologist, author, and public domain
advocate. Malamud is credited with the
invention of X. Malamud began a talk
show back in 1993, the first X, where he
would interview a computer expert every
week. More recently, you might have
about X in in a fiction series, where one of
the characters is credited with the invention of X. What is Malamud famous for?
Q10. A development event was held in
June some years ago by the developers
of an open source operating system in
Canada. The eventsaw a few developers
working on cryptographic software. This
event is widely considered the worlds first
_______. Fill in the blank.
4. Hitman
5. Happy and Sad Mac
7. Lynda
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